The Solitary Arrow Ch. 18

No, trapping oneself upon one of the platforms, or flets as the elves called them would not do during battle. It would be upon the ground the fight would happen. The beautiful, wide-open plan of the town would work against it, making for a very long defensive line.

Or would it? He looked closer at the etching, even more convinced now that it was Embalis he was looking upon. The creek on one side, and those tall, colorful brambles, even one building with an oddly solid stone wall on one side. There were defensive lines built into the very terrain and landscape of the village. He wondered if that were all intentional.

Tacticians or not, elves understood defenses, and understood them well, if instinctively.

"Fine, don't answer me." Trevir said with mock petulance.

Harlen started. "Hmm?" He asked.

"I asked if the village really looked like the one in the picture?" Trevir asked, apparently repeating a question Harlen had not heard.

"Yes, actually, perhaps even the very village." Harlen said, looking at the etching again.

Trevir got up from the rocking chair. "Really?" He asked, peering over Harlen's hand at the picture. "That's Embalis?"

"I think it is, at least it was, fifty or more years ago." Harlen said.

Harlen closed the book and handed it to Trevir. "I must go to Tammer's." He said.

Trevir's face fell, saddened at the sudden and obvious relapse in Harlen's problems of late.

"No, not to drink, Trevir." Harlen said. "That is done with." He looked at his half-empty mug. "Drink that yourself, if you've a mind, or dump it down the sump. I go to speak with my old mentor, not buy rum from a barkeep."

Trevir smiled at that. "Good, then." He said.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"I don't care how old those buildings are, or who owns them." Hyandai said, looking down at a shimmering illusion of the village hovering over a tabletop in the chamber atop the master tree. The room was otherwise dimly lit and elves came and went constantly, carrying messages to and from Hyandai, now the Warleader of Embaris.

"But Lady!" The elder elf said. "They are . . .."

"Going to provide cover for the enemy outside THAT section of palisades." Hyandai bit out, pointing to a section of the map. "Making our archers useless. Burn them down, and do it now! Else I will relieve you of duty and find someone who will." Her eyes were flaming golden now, and flashed in the torchlit chamber.

The aide scurried out of the door to enact her commands. She watched after him, shaking her head.

She was convinced the attack would fall from the north, and was ensuring the enemy would find little cover of any kind. She had the most recent reports flowing in from their scouts – Those that returned, anyway. She had just ordered that no more were to be sent out, as fully half of them were not returning at their assigned time. The enemy outnumbered them almost two to one.

This bodes not well. She thought to herself as she glowered at the illusory village on the tabletop.

One of the captains came up to her. She thought his name was Therann. "Why are you so sure they will attack at night, Warleader?" He asked.

She looked over the miniature village at him. "Because, they fear we will have human assistance from the Windy Isles." She said. "They will try to minimize human capabilities, nighttime is very crippling for human troops, their vision is very poor in near darkness."

"But we have no human troops." Therann protested.

Hyandai regarded him again. "I know that and you know that." She said. "But, unless they have some very good spies in our midst, they will not know it."

The captain looked at her curiously. "I fear they do." He said.

Hyandai nodded. "I do, as well." She said. "That is why I have had several of the people I trust spreading rumors that a company of rangers from the Windy Isles are marching toward us now."

Therann smiled. "Very nice." He said. "I take it I am one of those trusted folk?"

A long, uncomfortable moment passed while she blinked at him. "I do not know that for certain, Therann, I am sorry." She said. "But I deem it is now too late for new information to reach our enemies.

He actually looked a bit crestfallen, but she could not afford to trust anyone whose loyalty was not definite. Even her brother had apparently defected, as he had left three days ago, stealing a horse to do so. She knew that this war was pitting clansman against clansman, but for her own brother! She seethed inside at the betrayal of her own blood. The captain came up with some excuse to leave as her eyes turned bronze.

The smell of burning wood reached up into the chamber from the many small fires below, as the people enacted her orders. She walked out onto the catwalk around the room, surveying the real village below. Teams of elves were erecting another section of palisades. It grieved her to kill so many trees, but without the walls, the enemy would overrun them in minutes.

As she watched, a great oak near the edge of the village fell. Another team descended upon it with axes. She shook her head. They had to even craft some axes, as they only had a very few. There would be many prayers tonight begging the spirits to forgive them. Not the least of which would be Hyandai's own.

She looked down at her arms. The muscles showed clearly on them, she had lost almost fifteen pounds in the last two weeks, she ate little and often could not keep down even that. She had recently settled on drinking a broth-like drink that her father had come up with. It gave her some energy, but did not sate the hunger that gnawed at her gut.

Her eyes flicked to a company of elven militia, practicing with spears in ranked formation. They were competent, she supposed, but needed to be good. Hyandai reminded herself to have them drilled with mannequins. They had to get it through their heads that there would be people in front of them when they wield those spears in combat.

There was no satisfaction in her eyes as she surveyed Embalis. In its place was a grim determination. This town would not fall to the traitors, not if even only she defended it.

She feared it would come to just that.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"You've been to Embalis?" Harlen asked his former mentor.

Tammer nodded. "Of course, the border was more open in those days." he said. "We could come and go freely, if we had a mind, and minded our manners in the wood."

Harlen shook his head. "No." He said, almost accusingly. "There is more to it than that." He added.

The look on Tammer's wrinkled old face became a little worried, or embarrassed, or both. "It was a long time ago, Harlen, let it rest."

"I cannot." Harlen said. "It's important."

Tammer sighed mightily, looking over at his former apprentice, their eyes locked for a long moment. "If I tell you, you shall not go brooding it about."

Harlen nodded agreement to those terms.

"Okay." Tammer said, steeling himself. "Back when I was a young buck, like you." He poked Harlen's chest with a gnarled finger. "The elves were here aplenty. They came and went pretty regular, to the point where you could expect to see a half-dozen of them any old day." His eyes defocused, he was no longer in today, Harlen knew. "The huntsmen, like myself, were still a somewhat organized lot, like part of the militia. We even wore the uniform, in town, though it wasn't very uniform by then, just had to be green and black."

"Well, the elves approached the lot of us, and talked to us about being trained by them as 'rangers,' and coming back to Morrovale and having that extra knowledge with us." Tammer said smiling. "Well, about forty of us agreed to it, and they took us to Embalis. That's where I met Loskenaur. They trained us for two years, teaching us elven ways and tricks, and other stuff, some of us even picked up a touch of their religion, though they never forced it upon us." He chuckled. "Hell, some of the elves became Oneians while we were there. It was considered quite the coup to have a firstborn ask you about becoming one with the One."

"When we came back, it was pretty interesting." Tammer said. "But we found we didn't share quite the same values as the other huntsmen anymore. Money meant less; order and ecology meant more. Being among the elves for a long time changed us, all of us." He thought a moment. "We were all forty the best of the best huntsmen, too, using elven hunting tricks and archery techniques. Naturally, we were the men who aspiring apprentices came to more and we eventually came to be the ones who trained all but a handful of the current generation, either us or one of our students."

Harlen nodded. "That's why Hyandai said we Morrovale huntsmen were somewhat, in manner, to rangers from the Windy Isles." He said.

A sardonic look came over Tammers lined face. "We once were, maybe. Today, we're just huntsmen, once again." He said. "Perhaps better than many in the Realms, but still huntsmen."

There was a long pause as Harlen and Tammer both ran through their minds, both looking into space rather indistinctly.

"Drink?" Tammer finally asked, breaking their joint reverie.

Harlen shook his head. "No, I think I've had enough for now." He said.

Tammer smiled. "Good." He said. "I'm almost out of Coghlandish rum anyway. I guess Wendy got you straightened out, then?"

A moment of blank staring met Tammer's eyes, then Harlen reanimated. "Oh, Yeah!" He said. "She talked me out of drinking last night, mostly by making sure I kept flapping my jaw all night."

"She's a grown woman, Harlen." Tammer said gently. "You don't have to play semantic games with me. If you two like each other, then I am well pleased. She could choose somewhat worse in these parts." He sat a glass of grape juice before Harlen. "And I know of elves and their tendencies. Again, she is a grown woman." He winked and headed down the bar to tend to other patrons as Harlen sipped the tart grape juice.

Harlen again had to mull matters over, and sipped slowly. People came up to him, mostly other huntsmen and spoke to him briefly, mainly offering sympathy for his separation from Hyandai, others just to gossip of matters important only to huntsmen. He noted that Maegan was present, sitting with a couple of men from her company. They were drinking lightly, but engaged in a spirited game of pig's knuckles on their little table. Harlen chose to leave them be.

Finishing his drink, he left a penny on the bar and headed out, nodding to a busy Tammer as he went.

His house was mostly dark as he entered, as it usually was after Trevir had gone abed in his little room out back. He carried the single candle that had been left burning in the entry foyer up to his room with him, not wishing for the stark light of the orb.

He felt a twinge of alarm as he entered his room, and there was a very faint scent of cinnamon. The room was cold, and he saw a window ajar.

"I grow weary of uninvited elves in my home." Harlen grumbled, sliding his sword out of its sheath.

The large chair was facing away from him, and Harlen was sure someone was in it. There was no movement, though. He walked around the chair, giving it wide berth. To his amaze, when the features came into view, it was Ceriandel, Hyandai's brother.

He was injured.

"Ceriandel?" Harlen asked as the elf grimaced at him.

"I have come to collect you." The elf said, gritting his teeth and holding a hand over his ribs under his arm. "Hyandai is lovesick, and grows weaker by the day."

Harlen gaped at him. "What?" He asked, sheathing his blade and kneeling before Ceriandel. "What happened to you?"

"I ran into some of the traitors on my way here." He chuckled bitterly. "They thought I was going for help from Morrovale, as if you would give any after these fifty years. I managed to elude them after they shot me."

Ceriandel uncovered his ribs, an arrow shaft poked out, he had snapped the longest part of it off, but the head was still buried between his ribs, blood was covering his tunic around the wound.

"You need a healer." Harlen said, looking at the wound. "I cannot repair such an injury."

The elf chuckled again; there was wetness in the sound of his harsh breath. "What I need is for my sister to be well." He said, locking his silvern eyes upon Harlen. "If that means getting you to her, then so be it." Ceriandel started to rise from the chair, but fell back. "Or perhaps I will sit here and die."

Harlen opened the back window of the room and yelled for Trevir. Two calls brought the lad's blonde head out of his own window.

"Fetch Father Tegmar with all haste!" Harlen yelled at the lad, who immediately pulled his head back in and was out his door and running around the house in mere seconds.

"A healer is coming." Harlen said, patting Ceriandel's shoulder. "Tell me more."

Ceriandel looked up at him. "She was fine for a few days, and very involved in her duties as the strategist for the village." He coughed. "Then she started taking ill, and crying for you. She still does her needed job, but is now quite ill, she cannot keep food down, and she is a disaster, emotionally." He smiled another bitter smile. "She refuses to see a healer. We're already getting injured people in from outlying places and she says they need help more than she." He had a very upset look in his eyes. "She has lost weight, and she grows weaker daily."

Harlen's hands were shaking as he found some clean cloth to press to Ceriandel's wound. "She refuses to see a healer?" Harlen asked.

Ceriandel nodded. "Absolutely. She flew into a rage when I brought one to her chambers." He said. "As I said, she is very unpredictable."

It was almost fifteen minutes before Father Tegmar arrived, under tow by Trevir. As he came into the room he sighed.

"You have a knack for providing me with injured elves." He said with a smile. "At least this one still breathes."

Ceriandel got a very inquisitive look on his face and raised an eyebrow at Harlen. The huntsman simply shrugged.

The priest examined the wound. "Easily enough repaired, once the arrow is removed." He declared. "Would you like me to do it?" He solicitously asked the elven blade dancer.

It was a moment before Ceriandel answered. "Yes." He finally said, having weighed the options. "If you are certain you can mend the wound."

Tegmar chuckled. "Of course, I can, unless you be unholy." He said. "Which I sincerely doubt." He put one hand upon the shaft, wrapping his fingers with the clean cloth. He gripped the arrow firmly with his fingers and thumb.

"Harlen, please hold his arms." Tegmar said. "This will hurt mightily."

Ceriandel suffered Harlen bear hugging his arms to his side, though slightly modified by the odd angle his right arm had to lie due to the arrow's location. "I shall likely be loud." Ceriandel said, with wry humor. "Think little of it."

With a grunt, Tegmar yanked the arrow free. The head was barbed and tore more skin on the way out. Blood flew in a fan hitting the wall and floor.

True to his word, Ceriandel yelled loudly; a pained exclamation of agony and forewarned shock. When Harlen let his arms go, he was sweating profusely and shaking. His skin was clammy to the touch.

"I must heal him now, else he may die of shock." Father Tegmar said.

The priest grabbed his holy symbol that was lying upon his breast and clasped it in his hand.

Harlen had seen this little miracle before, but it still amazed him as Tegmar called upon the power of the One, through the blessed Saint Uriens. His hand glowed, as it had before, but not nearly so brightly as it had with Hyandai's mortal wound.

As before the wound simply ceased to be. It did not mend or reverse, it just wasn't any more. There was a hole in Ceriandel's tunic, and blood on skin and cloth, but no wound of any kind to be found.

Ceriandel looked appraisingly at his healed side, quickly recovering from the impending shock he had been falling into.

"I've never been healed thusly." He said, eyeing the priest. "Very interesting sensation."

Harlen smiled at the blade dancer. "Tegmar is an excellent shepherd for the flock of Morrovale." He said.

Father Tegmar grinned back. "A shepherd who is becoming used to being dragged out of his home in the wee hours to tend to people whom Harlen comes across injured." He said. "But it appears to me that this was an elven arrowhead." He looked at the bloody stub of an arrow lying on the cloth. Is it becoming common for elves to attack one another these days?"

Ceriandel stood up. "It would seem so, Father Tegmar." He said. "But that is an aberration we hope to stop soon."

After a few more questions and semi-answers, Father Tegmar took his leave. Harlen looked down at Trevir.

"Sorry, Trevir, but Ceriandel and I have matters to discuss." Harlen said.

Trevir looked disappointed, but left quietly, and went back out the back door.

"How do you propose to get me to her?" Harlen asked. "Aren't there enemies in the wood, as your state upon arrival points to?"

Ceriandel looked at his bloodied tunic. "There are, but they are few now, I was simply unlucky." He said. "They have amassed their forces in preparation of attack."

"So the war has not started?" Harlen asked.

"Mercifully, no." The elf replied. "They were waiting on more of their number to form. It seems they wish for a quick and decisive victory. The better to send a message to the throne that they say the times are changing. I fear when the hammer falls, it will smash Embalis flat."

"How many?" Harlen asked.

Ceriandel thought a moment. "Seven hundreds, at least, maybe eight."

"And in Embalis?" Harlen continued.

A long moment passed. "Four hundreds." Ceriandel finally said. "Including the populace that is of age to fight."

Harlen nodded. "I know little of magical effects on fighting." He said. "But those do not seem good odds."

Ceriandel. "Magic or no, they have mages and we have mages, that will balance, more or less." Ceriandel said. "We have more archers, they have better assault capabilities." He looked at his hands for a moment. "Many of theehladrim went to their side."

"Cavalry?" Harlen asked. "Do they have much?"

"No." Ceriandel said. "The cavalry has stayed loyal. They are more thoroughly trained than the line soldiery. But they are only forty strong."

Harlen was leading Ceriandel down the stairs to his workroom, and began packing his things. "I have thought much of your town's defenses, such as they are." Harlen said. "I assume you have been bolstering them?"

The elf nodded. "Hyandai, as the Warleader, has been ordering palisades constructed in weak spots and such." He said. "I do not rightly understand matters of massed warfare." Ceriandel admitted.

Harlen soon had himself packed and slung his bow and three quivers of arrows over his shoulder.

He looked at the elf. "Are you fit to travel now?"

Ceriandel nodded. "If it means beginning the trek back, yes." He said. "I will have been missed, and perhaps thought miscreant, or cowardly."

They both went out the front door. "I will collect my horse from the stable in town, I had not the facilities or knowledge to care for such a fine beast on my small bit of land." Harlen explained as Ceriandel mounted a large elven horse.

A nod was his answer. They walked past the gate then to the stable across from the Pierced Boar. Harlen managed to rouse the lad who slept there for latecomers to the stable. Within minutes, N'umessa was brought forth with tack and saddle upon him.

Ceriandel chuckled. "N'umessa?" He asked. "An interesting choice of names."

Harlen smiled at him as he mounted the beast. "He wouldn't tell me, so perhaps it is true."

"I could believe that." Ceriandel said.

They both sat for just a moment, then Harlen clucked at the horse beneath him and he began a trot toward the south gate. Ceriandel followed behind.